Attack on Convoy AN 14

Attack on Convoy AN 14
Part of The Battle of the Mediterranean of the Second World War and the Greco-Italian War
Italian torpedo boat Lupo
Date 31 January 1941 Location The Kasos Strait between Crete and Kasos in the Aegean Sea 35°33′32″N25°34′14″E / 35.55889°N 25.57056°E / 35.55889; 25.57056 Result Italian victory
Belligerents
Italy	United Kingdom   Australia   Greece
Commanders and leaders
Francesco Mimbelli	Herbert Packer
Units involved
Lupo Libra
Strength
2 torpedo boats	3 light cruisers 2 destroyers 2 corvettes 9 merchant ships 1 tanker
Casualties and losses
None	1 seaman killed 1 tanker disabled
class=notpageimage| Site of the attack on Desmoulea

The Attack on Convoy AN 14 was a naval engagement during the Second World War between a British naval force defending a convoy of merchant ships, sailing from Port Said and Alexandria to Piraeus in Greece and two Italian torpedo boats which intercepted them north of the island of Crete on 31 January 1941. The Italian vessels, Lupo and Libra launched two torpedoes each. The torpedoes fired by Libra missed their target but one from Lupo hit the 8,120  GRT British tanker Desmoulea which had to be towed to Suda Bay in Crete and beached; the ship was disabled for the rest of the war. One other merchant ship turned back; the other eight vessels reached Piraeus.

Background

When the Italo-Greek War commenced between Fascist Italy and Greece on 28 October 1940, the British began to send aircraft and stores through the Aegean Sea to support the Greek war effort. The Greek government provided the Allies with tugs, harbour vessels and a naval base for the British Mediterranean Fleet at Suda Bay in Crete. ^[1] Greece and Britain had concluded a co-operation agreement in January 1940, which secured commercial relations and made the Greek merchant fleet available for the transport of war supplies to the Allies, before the Italo–Greek War began. ^[2]

Prelude

Italian navy

Since the declaration of the war with the Allies ion 10 June 1940, Italian naval forces in the Dodecanese were limited in their capacity to supply garrisons. Most stores were carried by submarine and aircraft but the expedient was insufficient and the Italians began to use coastal ships. The ships ferried 4,500 long tons (4,600 t) of supplies to the Dodecanese, even after the closing of the Corinth Canal during the Italo-Greek War. ^[3] A flotilla of torpedo boats were deployed in the area by the Regia Marina in December 1940, under the command of captain Francesco Mimbelli, to reinforce the ships around Rhodes and Leros, whose naval base of Porto Lago (Lakki) was the main base of the Regia Marina in the Aegean. ^[4]

Convoy AN 14

Convoy AN (Aegean Northward) 14 consisted of the British ships Destro (3,553 gross register tons (GRT)], Goldmouth (7,402 GRT), Harmattan (4,558 GRT), Katerina, Desmoulea (8,120 GRT), Levernbank (5,150 GRT) and three Greek merchant ships, Mount Olympus (6,692 GRT), Nicolaos G. Culucundis (3,201 GRT) and Spyros (6,629 GRT). ^[5] The convoy was escorted by the light cruiser HMS Calcutta (Commander Herbert Packer), the destroyers HMS Dainty and Jaguar and the corvettes HMS Peony and Gloxina. ^[6] The bulk of the convoy sailed from Port Said on 28 January, with the corvette Gloxina. Levernbank and the large tanker Desmoulea, escorted by Calcutta and Peony, departed Alexandria on 29 January. ^[7] The troop transport Ethiopia (5,574 GRT) carrying RAF personnel, left Alexandria some hours later, with the destroyer HMS Hasty. ^[8] The cruiser HMS Ajax and the Australian light cruiser HMAS Perth were to provide distant cover; Jaguar and Dainty swept the Kasos Strait ahead of the convoy. ^[9]

Action

Italian torpedo boat Libra

Convoy AN 14 had sailed from Port Said on 28 and 29 January; on 31 January 1941, the Italian torpedo boats departed Leros and while performing an anti-submarine search in the Kasos Strait, they spotted an Allied convoy, escorted by a cruiser and three destroyers. ^{[10] [lower-alpha 1]} The two vessels separated, Libra to distract the escort, while Lupo attacked with its 450 mm (18 in) torpedoes. The Italians reported that Lupo hit a large steamer with two torpedoes and then Libra launched another two at a cruiser without effect. The Italians were engaged by the escorts but managed to escape. ^[12]

In the British account, only one torpedo hit the tanker Desmoulea, which was loaded with a cargo of petrol and white oils. Admiral Andrew Cunningham recorded that the tanker had been detached to Suda Bay from the Alexandria section of the convoy and was torpedoed at 18:00 on 31 January. Dainty, the close escort, took the tanker in tow at 20:00, after it been abandoned by its crew. Perth assisted but then Cunningham ordered Perth to resume its escort duties. ^[13] Desmoulea had been hit abreast the engine room and left sinking but the crew re-boarded the tanker when it became clear that it was still afloat. ^[14] Desmoulea arrived in Suda Bay under tow at 08:00 on 1 February and beached with its cargo intact. ^[15] Peony survived an attack by bombers 40 nmi (46 mi; 74 km) from Crete and the rest of the convoy reached Piraeus on 2 February 1941. ^[16]

Aftermath

Analysis

Along with torpedo damage inflicted on the cargo ship Clan Cumming on 19 January by the Italian submarine Neghelli , which was eventually destroyed by the escorts, this was the only Italian success against British convoys in the Aegean Sea. ^[17] After the action, Allied shipping made passage into the Aegean through the more westerly Antikythera Strait. ^[18]

Subsequent events

HMS Dainty

Desmoulea remained at Suda Bay for several weeks, down on the sandy bottom by the stern, with its after well deck awash; the cargo was transferred to the tanker Eocene. ^[19] Desmoulea was towed by the armed boarding vessel HMS Chakla and escorted to Port Said by the anti-submarine trawlers HMT Lydiard and HMT Amber. The ship arrived on 6 May and moored off the western beacon of Suez, for use as a temporary storage vessel. ^[9] While awaiting repairs, Desmoulea was torpedoed again on 3 August 1941 by German bombers, the explosion tearing a hole 35 ft × 12 ft (10.7 m × 3.7 m) in its side. Desmoulea was towed to Aden on 27 April by Olivia (6,250 GRT) and waited for the end of the monsoon, inspection revealing that it had a broken back, was hogged by 4 ft (1.2 m), with little strength, no power, no steering and a flooded engine-room. ^[20]

The ship resumed its voyage on 30 December towed by Malda (9,066 GRT) and arrived at Bombay on 12 January 1942. After waiting for a dry dock until 23 April, it was towed by Ondina to Bhavnagar, arriving on 1 May, beaching in a small river, making its hull damage worse. On 20 November, the Norwegian Utsire (4,441 GRT) began towing Desmoulea but after two days, the tow line parted and the ship went aground at Goapnath Point. After four days, a tug refloated the ship which was returned to Bombay and used as an oil storage ship. Desmoulea went into dry dock in July 1943 and was found to be repairable and in November, renamed Empire Thane it was towed to Cochin and used as a storage hulk. In 1947 Desmoulea returned to its pre-war ownership and name. The vessel began a tow to Britain on 21 April, arriving at Falmouth on 16 July. Desmoulea was rebuilt under its original name in 1949, before being laid up in 1955 and scrapped in 1961. ^[20]

Casualties

The Third Engineering Officer, George Donn, was killed in the action. ^[21]

See also

• Attack on Convoy BN 7
• Operation Harpoon

Notes

1. This website erroneously states that the torpedo boat Lince was involved but it was escorting a steamer from the Dodecanese. ^[11]

Footnotes

1. Titterton 2002, p. 154.
2. Koliopoulos 1978, pp. 406–408.
3. Smith & Walker 1974, pp. 8–9.
4. Mimbelli 2016; Gabellone 2005.
5. Jordan 2006, pp. 133, 88, 142, 219, 220, 223.
6. Hague 2016.
7. Jordan 2006, p. 88.
8. Jordan 2006, p. 98.
9. Smith 1998.
10. Gabellone 2005.
11. PA 2016.
12. Cocchia 1959, p. 339.
13. Cunningham & Simpsom 1999, p. 270.
14. SSR 1947.
15. Cunningham & Simpsom 1999, p. 270; Masters 1953, p. 152.
16. Hague 2016; Smith 1998.
17. Mattesini 1998, p. 33.
18. O'Hara 2009, p. 85.
19. Smith 1998; Smith 1998a; Hatfield 2009, p. 116.
20. Mitchell & Sawyer 1990, pp. 396–397; Jordan 2006, p. 519.
21. "Tower Hill: Lost on vessels - D'entrecasteax to Devonia". www.benjidog.co.uk. Retrieved 23 May 2020.

References

Books

• Cocchia, A. (1959). La Marina italiana nella seconda guerra mondiale[The Italian Navy in the Second World War] (in Italian). Roma: Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare. OCLC   23516701.
• Cunningham, Andrew Browne; Simpsom, Michael A. (1999). The Cunningham Papers. Publications of the Navy Records Society. Vol. 140. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate for the Navy Records Society. ISBN   978-1-84014-622-6.
• Hatfield, G. E. (2009). Carlton, M. (ed.). H.M.A.S. Perth 1939–1941: From the Diaries of P.O. George Hatfield (PDF) (online scan ed.). Sydney, NSW: Springwood Printing Co. OCLC   910514682 . Retrieved 2 October 2016.
• Jordan, Roger W. (2006) [1999]. The World's Merchant Fleets 1939: The Particulars and Wartime Fates of 6,000 Ships (2nd ed.). London: Chatham/Lionel Leventhal. ISBN   978-1-86176-293-1.
• Koliopoulos, Ioannis (1978). Internal and External Developments from March 1, 1935 to the October 28, 1940: The War of 1940–1941 (in Greek). no isbn. Athens: Ekdotiki Athinon.
• Masters, David (1953). Epics of Salvage: Wartime Feats of the Marine Salvage Men in World War II. Boston, MA: Little, Brown. OCLC   1563108.
• Mattesini, Francesco (1998). L'operazione Gaudo e lo scontro notturno di Matapan[Operation Gaudo and the Night Battle of Matapan] (in Italian). Roma: Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare [Historical Office of the Navy]. OCLC   45375070.
• Mitchell, William Harry; Sawyer, Leonard Arthur (1990). The Empire Ships: A Record of British-built and Acquired Merchant Ships During the Second World War. London: Lloyd's of London Press. ISBN   1-85044-275-4.
• O'Hara, Vincent (2009). Struggle for the Middle Sea. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN   978-1-61251-408-6.
• Smith, Peter; Walker, Edwin (1974). War in the Aegean. London: Kimber. ISBN   0-7183-0422-5.
• Titterton, G. A. (2002). The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean. London: Routledge. ISBN   978-0-7146-5205-4.

Journals

• "Desmoulea Suda tow". Shipbuilding and Shipping Record: A Journal of Shipbuilding, Marine Engineering, Docks, Harbours & Shipping. 70. 1947. OCLC   436683593 . Retrieved 2 October 2016.

Websites

• "Francesco Mimbelli". Ministero della Difesa: Marina Militare (in Italian). 2016. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
• Gabellone, A. (2005). "Un Saluto Dalle Regie Navi Lupo e Lince" [Greetings from Italian Ships Wolf and Lynx]. Filatelia la Sezione Filatelica del Gruppo di Taranto. Philately: The Fascinating History of our Ships Through Postal Documents. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
• Hague, A. (2016). Kindell, D. (ed.). "Arnold Hague Convoy Database: Shorter Convoy Series". Convoy Web. Archived from the original on 31 May 2014. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
• "Platon Alexiades statement". Archived from the original on 16 February 2016. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
• "Shell tanker Desmoulea". www.helderline.nl. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
• Smith, Gordon (1998). "Naval Events, January 1941 (Part 2 of 2) Wednesday 15th – Friday 31st". Naval-History Net. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
• Smith, Gordon (1998a). "Naval Events, April 1941 (Part 2 of 2) Tuesday 15th – Wednesday 30th". Naval-History Net. Retrieved 2 October 2016.

External links

• Convoy AN 14: Port Said to Piræus, 28 January – 2 February 1941. Arnold Hague Convoy Database (Shorter convoy series)